Report of the Think 7 Summit - Think 7 USA 2020
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Think 7 USA 2020:
Report of the Think 7 Summit
Videoconference, May 14–15, 2020
Organized and hosted by the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC,
with the support of the G7 Research Group
based at the University of Toronto
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Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3
Recommendations ................................................................................................................................ 4
Global Health ................................................................................................................................... 4
Global Economy ............................................................................................................................... 4
International Trade .......................................................................................................................... 5
Energy and Environment ................................................................................................................. 6
Political Security ............................................................................................................................... 7
G7 Process ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Members ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Health Working Group ................................................................................................................... 8
Economy Working Group ............................................................................................................... 8
International Trade Working Group............................................................................................... 8
Energy and Environment Working Group...................................................................................... 8
Political Security Working Group ................................................................................................... 8
Biographies ........................................................................................................................................... 9
Rationales ........................................................................................................................................... 17
Health ............................................................................................................................................. 17
Economy ......................................................................................................................................... 18
International Trade ........................................................................................................................ 23
Energy and Environment ............................................................................................................... 25
Political Security ............................................................................................................................. 28
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Introduction
Think 7 USA 2020 was held on May 14 and 15, 2020, by videoconference from its hub in
Washington DC. It was designed, organized and hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, with support from the G7 Research Group based at the Munk School of
Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Think 7 USA 2020 assembled 27 high-level experts from all G7 members, including the European
Union and neighboring countries, with leading reputations in the five key areas that the G7
presidency itself had identified as the focus for the summit this year. The Think 7 thus focused on
health, economic recovery, trade, energy and environment, and peace and security. The 27
participants came from think tanks and universities, with contributions from those who with high-
level experience inside their government teams, especially in the United States.
Informed by the experience of the inaugural, full-blown Think 7 launched in Canada’s year as G7
host in 2018, and the subsequent Think 7 in France in 2019, Think 7 USA 2020 sought to make
an independent, innovative and influential contribution tightly tied to the summit’s agenda
priorities.
The result was the 25 consensus recommendations contained in this report. They are followed by
the list of the participants and their biographies, and the rationales upon which the
recommendations are based. We welcome your thoughts in the days and months ahead. These
recommendations are presented in the form of commitments that the G7 leaders can adopt and
present in their own summit communiqué(s).
In conclusion, we are grateful to the splendid support of Jane Harman, director, president and
CEO of the Wilson Center. We also appreciate the support of our staff and colleagues, especially
Jacqueline Orr, Savannah Boylan, Mariana Sanchez Ramirez and Gerassimos Pepelassis.
At the G7 Research Group, we are also grateful to Madeline Koch, executive director, and many of
our researchers: Stéphanie Bussière, Meagan Byrd, Alessandra Cicci, Sonja Dobson, Hiromitsu
Higashi, Maria Marchyshyn, Bogdan Stovba, Alissa Wang, Brittaney Warren, Kat Yampolsky and
Mary Zelenova.
Christopher Sands
Director, Canada Institute
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
John Kirton,
Director, G7 Research Group
University of Toronto
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Recommendations
Global Health
1. We will support the most vulnerable and guarantee funding for Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs’ $6.7 billion call for the immediate global humanitarian response to
COVID-19 in fragile countries.
2. We will make an initial, immediate commitment of $20 billion to vaccinate the world’s
population as a global public good and will also support global scientific collaboration to
accelerate the development, production, equitable and affordable access to new COVID-19
diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines (Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator).
3. We agree to lead by example and implement the seven urgent actions that will prepare the
world for future health emergencies as set out by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board,
engage in proactive collaborative global leadership, and provide the necessary political support
and funding to this end, work to improve and reform the system of pandemic and
preparedness response and drive the global effort to ensure equitable access to COVID-19
vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
4. We will strive to mitigate the catastrophic impacts of COVID-19 in the most vulnerable
countries and populations by taking measures to slow and stop the spread through reliable
monitoring and testing, a One Health approach, strengthened primary health care, and
leveraging technology and digital health, while continuing our work to control anti-microbial
resistance, ensuring human rights and working to meet our targets set in Sustainable
Development Goal 3, including ending HIV/AIDS by 2030.
5. We will address the gendered dimensions of COVID-19, in particular the role of women
healthcare workers and the recent spike in gender-based violence. Building on the work of the
G7’s Gender Equality Advisory Council and the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity
Initiative, we will form a task-and-finish group to develop timely and effective measures to
address the gender aspect of the pandemic, based on a multi-stakeholder approach that
includes national governments, civil society and international institutions.
Global Economy
6. We agree that as our economies reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will
undertake efforts to modify economic policies and regulatory structures to make our economies
more flexible, resilient, jobs rich and pandemic proof, and compatible with equality of
opportunity, including access to universal health coverage.
7. We will promote economically and socially sustainable COVID-19 recovery strategies by
providing best practice guidance on physical distancing and sanitization for businesses and
institutions to encourage the rapid, safe reopening of our economies. We further commit to
redirect our fiscal support toward policies that promote adaptation to new circumstances. This
can involve redirecting current stimulus packages to active labor market policies (such as hiring
and training subsidies), investment tax credits, employment services and online resource
matching platforms.
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8. We will make a concerted effort to invest in human capital — especially health and education —
to stimulate growth, stabilize living standards and make the global economy more resilient to
economic and other shocks. This includes identifying and sharing best practices to provide
workers with the skills they will need to find good jobs and to contribute to a strong post-
pandemic economic recovery, engendering close and cooperative partnerships between
business (especially small business and entrepreneurs), academia and local, regional and
national governments to give workers and businesses the skills needed to prosper, including
healthcare workers and post-secondary students.
9. We will assess the resources available to international financial institutions, particularly the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, required to provide effective support for
their members, covering both short-term emergency funding needs and medium-term financial
challenges, particularly debt overhang. We will maintain our public debt moratorium for poor
states and stand ready to provide more necessary effective assistance through such appropriate
measures as debt forgiveness, action on private debt and consideration of a special issue of IMF
special drawing rights where G7 members could pass on their allocations to others for the
above purposes. We will coordinate closely in our efforts to help those countries hit most
severely by the COVID-19 pandemic to recover.
International Trade
10. We will assure that emergency trade measures taken do not harm efforts to address the
pandemic, including by rapidly removing all tariffs and unnecessary non-tariff barriers on
medical products and other essential supplies, to lower the costs of finished goods, inputs such
as active ingredients and scarce chemicals; abstaining from new policies that would undermine
responses to the pandemic and waiving existing restrictions on purchases of medical products
and other essential supplies; keeping supply chains open to facilitate imports of raw materials,
inputs and final medical goods; and establishing an experts group to give us recommendations
for making supply chains more robust and more resilient and building more effective
emergency supply chains. We ask the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development to monitor trade and investment restrictions
imposed in response to the pandemic and to publish quarterly reports assessing their impact.
11. We will support the WHO’s “open platform” policy on patents and licensing of COVID-19
diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines to ensure adequate supply and effective distribution as
they are approved. We will also address other trade-related intellectual property issues as the
international economy evolves and give special focus to assuring access to medicines and
medical supplies in the pandemic and other health emergencies.
12. We will work to forge additional agreement on digital governance and data flows, e-commerce
and e-service provision, given the increasing reliance on data collection and flows, internet-
provided services and digital marketplaces.
13. We support WTO reform in the year ahead to improve its functioning and enhance the role of
the multilateral trading system to promote trade flows and support economic recovery. We will
thus engage in a thorough, extensive search to select the next WTO Director General with the
urgent need to reform the organization in mind.
14. We will support efforts, through WHO, to revise the International Health Regulations, to
develop and implement new protocols for foreign travel subject to international testing
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guidelines, and to allow emergency waivers of licensing requirements so that qualified
practitioners can move between countries as the peak caseloads roll from one location to
another.
15. We support the more effective use of existing trade agreements and mechanisms, such as the
WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, and will identify additional steps to facilitate flows of
essential goods and services that are needed during the pandemic. We will also consider this
year new agreements to liberalize trade in medicine and medical supplies that can facilitate
provision of such goods and increase global surge capacity during future health emergencies.
16. We will devote concerted attention to potential abuses of government subsidies, under cover of
responding to the pandemic, that would disrupt efficient supply of goods and to develop
options for strengthening international disciplines on the use of subsidies.
Energy and Environment
17. We will encourage major investments in the physical infrastructure of electricity grids, to
ensure grid reliability and the capacity to bring new energy sources online and foster new smart
grids that can handle more intermittent sources of energy and ensure higher levels of security
against external threats and ensure that our hospitals, long-term care facilities and supporting
healthcare infrastructure always have the electricity they need to control COVID-19. To this
end we will promote renewable energy, battery storage, grid infrastructure, digitalization, and
electric and hydrogen-fuel based mobility.
18. We will strengthen global gas markets, while minimizing methane emissions, to promote
energy security and respiratory well-being, by facilitating the movement of natural and liquified
gas, in ways that assist the energy transition and allow for full complementarity with renewable
energy sources.
19. We will reduce energy sources that pollute the air and harm health, especially in urban areas,
given the compelling evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact was worsened by poor
air quality and particle pollution.
20. We will do our fair share to meet the global goal of planting 1 trillion trees by 2030 for
planetary and human health, by using locally appropriate trees that provide medicines and
promote health and biodiversity, by nurturing their growth, and by creating 1 million new jobs
for this purpose over the next years. We will mobilize our citizens, private sector and other
stakeholders including Indigenous peoples to help in planting and maintaining tree health,
while preventing deforestation and assisting others in such efforts.
21. We will identify the challenges and propose solutions for the management of medical waste in
our own and key developing countries. On this basis we will act against severe water pollution
from contaminated waste, develop an early warning system using wastewater monitoring to
prepare for potential future pandemics and reduce plastic pollution more generally.
22. To support a healthy, green, fiscally sustainable recovery, we aim to phase out fossil fuel
subsidies, unproductive agriculture subsidies and polluting coal-fired power plants in our
countries; decarbonize our energy systems, including through financial institutional rules and
incentives; invest in green hydrogen networks; promote a clean, circular economy of low
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emission technologies, resource efficiency and waste reduction, appropriate carbon pricing, and
sustainable products and services; enhance digital technology applications for sustainable
development; build and renovate buildings in energy-efficient and healthy ways; and foster
smart mobility and active transportation.
Political Security
23. Building on the United Nations Secretary-General’s call on March 23, 2020, for a global cease-
fire in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we commit to a new and comprehensive Global
Peace Process to restore trust through confidence-building measures, and to launch
negotiations between like-minded countries for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
resolution on general principles of international conduct, mutual respect, and common
responsibility for peace and stability in the 21st century. This includes a common stance against
terrorism and mass atrocities. We take urgent action together with other nations and
organizations to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in conflict zones and for refugees and
internally displaced persons. In a spirit of trust and compromise, G7 members are ready to
work intensively with the UNSC and relevant non-G7 partners, in renewed contact groups, to
end the protracted armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and the Sahel in the
near future. We support a new push in disarmament talks in line with the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, including a renewal of New Start and a new treaty on intermediate range nuclear forces
between the United States, Russia and China.
24. We agree to mandate a task force in order to constitutionalize the digital sector by expanding
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to include a Universal Declaration of Rights on
the Internet. Safeguards are needed to protect its end-users in turbulent times when potential
and actual victims of a pandemic are or can be traced, named and eventually shamed regardless
of their privacy worldwide, for the first time ever. Such provisions should combine free access
for all and protection against harassment of all kinds, as well as transparency and security.
Within this framework for action, and building up on, first, the 2019 Christchurch Call to
Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content On Line and, second, on the 2019 Biarritz
Summit Charter for a Free, Safe and Open Internet, we aim in particular to strengthen
cooperation in investigating hate speech, as well as promoting hate speech awareness through
digital education.
G7 Process
25. We will continue meeting at appropriate intervals this year to ensure the effective
implementation of these commitments and to build on them in response to changing needs.
We invite the G20 to support our efforts in this regard.
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Members
Health Working Group
• Hugo Dobson, School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield
• James Hospedales, EarthMedic; former executive director, Caribbean Public Health Agency
• Ilona Kickbusch, Geneva Graduate Institute, Global Pandemic Monitoring Board
• Chiara Oldani, University of Viterbo “La Tuscia”
• Lord Jim O’Neill, Chatham House
• James Orbinski, Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, York University; Dalla Lana
School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Economy Working Group
• Sir Nicholas Bayne, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Robert Fauver, former U.S. sherpa
• Shihoko Goto, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
• Meg Lundsager, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
• Dennis J. Snower, President, Global Solutions Initiative
International Trade Working Group
• Louis Bélanger, Graduate School of International Studies, Laval University
• Michelle Egan, School of International Service, American University
• Matt Goodman, Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Jeffrey J. Schott, Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Claudia Schmucker, German Council on Foreign Relations
• Earl Anthony Wayne, School of International Service, American University; Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars
Energy and Environment Working Group
• Dan Hamilton, Foreign Policy Institute, School for Advanced International Studies, Johns
Hopkins University
• John Kirton, G7 Research Group, University of Toronto
• Kazuo Matsushita, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
• Miranda Schreurs, Bavarian School of Public Policy, Technical University of Munich
• Duncan Wood, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars
Political Security Working Group
• Ash Jain, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
• Dries Lesage, Ghent Institute for International Studies, Ghent University
• Karoline Postel-Vinay, Centre de Recherches Internationales, Sciences Po Paris
• Yves Schemeil, University of Grenoble-Alps
• Christopher Sands, Canada Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
• Jan Wouters, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven
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Biographies
Nicholas Bayne
Sir Nicholas Bayne KCMG was a British diplomat for 35 years. He served as ambassador in
Kinshasa; UK representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;
economic director general at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, when he was British sous-
sherpa for the G7 summits in Paris (1989), Houston (1990) and London (1991). While British high
commissioner to Canada from 1992 to 1996 he attended the G7’s 1995 Halifax Summit. Since
1999 he has taught a graduate course on economic diplomacy at the London School of Economics
and has published, with Stephen Woolcock, The New Economic Diplomacy (fourth edition 2017). He
has also written three books on the G7 summit (Hanging Together, with Robert Putnam, 1987;
Hanging In There, 2000; and Staying Together, 2005) and a volume of memoirs (Economic Diplomat,
2010).
Louis Bélanger
Louis Bélanger is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at
Université Laval, Quebec City, and currently a visiting professor in the Department of Political
Economy and Statistics and the Department of Social, Political, and Cognitive Sciences at
Università di Siena, Italy. From 2000 to 2005 and from 2013 to 2019, he was the director of
Laval’s Institute for Advanced International Studies (HEI), which became under his leadership the
Graduate School of International Studies. Professor Bélanger is the author of publications on
global and regional governance, Canadian foreign policy, the politics of secession, and
methodology. He held visiting positions at Duke University, at Sciences Po Paris (Centre d’études
et de recherches internationales), at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, at the
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (Johns Hopkins University), and at
Sciences Po Grenoble. He has also been president (founding) of the Canadian section of the
International Studies Association (2001-2003) and a member of the ISA Executive Council (2003-
2004). Louis Bélanger was guest editorialist for international affairs for the newspaper Le Devoir
(1998) and the editor of Études internationales (1998-2000, 2012-2013). He was a member of the
Advisory Council on National Security (2007-2010), a member of the Military Police Complaints
Commission of Canada (2007-2011), and a member of the Interim Board of Directors of the
Defence Analysis Institute (2014). He organized, hosted and chaired the Think 7 in 2018.
Hugo Dobson
Hugo Dobson is a professor of Japan’s international relations in the School of East Asian Studies at
the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
His research interests focus upon multilateral organisations and global governance, especially the
G7 and G20 and in particular Japan’s role therein. He is the author of a number of monographs
and articles on the G7, G20, Japan’s politics and international relations and has been invited to
teach and research at various institutions around the world including the University of Tokyo,
Hosei University in Tokyo, Zurich University and Charles University in Prague.
Michelle Egan
Michelle Egan is a professor in the School of International Service at American University, where
she focuses on comparative politics and political economy. She works on Europe and the United
States, particularly on issues of federalism, trade, governance and law. She is currently on a Council
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on Foreign Relations Fellowship in Canada. She is past Chair and Vice Chair of EUSA, the EU
Studies Association, and is editor of series on the European Union with Palgrave. She is a Global
Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and has been a recipient of the
Wilson Fellowship. She has published two books with Oxford, and is currently working on another
book on trade and comparative federalism. She has appeared on CNN International, NPR
Marketplace, NPR the World, Al Jazeera, Sirius Radio, Knowledge@Wharton, as well as been
quoted in various news media, notably on Brexit, Trade Policy, and EU affairs.
Robert C. Fauver
Robert Fauver has directly served U.S. presidents and cabinet secretaries in a succession of senior
international financial and economic affairs positions. He was a special assistant to President
Clinton for National Security Affairs and Economic Policy and served as his G7 sherpa for the
1993 and 1994 summits. Under President Bush from 1991 to 1993, he was acting undersecretary
of state for economic affairs as well as deputy undersecretary. He led the US government’s creation
and management of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum and a major deregulation
initiative in the US-Japan relationship.
Matthew Goodman
Matthew Goodman is senior vice president and senior adviser for Asian economics at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, where he holds the Simon Chair in Political Economy.
Before joining CSIS in early 2012, he served as director for international economics on the
National Security Council staff, helping the president prepare for G20 and G8 summits. He was
also White House coordinator for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia
Summit. Prior to this White House experience, Goodman was senior adviser to the under secretary
for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs at the US Department of State. Before joining the
Obama administration in 2009, he worked for five years at Albright Stonebridge Group, a global
business advisory firm based in Washington DC, where he was managing director for Asia. From
2002 to 2004, he served at the White House as director for Asian economic affairs on the National
Security Council staff. Prior to that, he spent five years at Goldman, Sachs & Co., heading the
investment bank’s government affairs operations in Tokyo and London. From 1988 to 1997, he
worked as an international economist at the US Treasury Department, including five years as
financial attaché at the US embassy in Tokyo. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign
Relations and is chair emeritus of the board of trustees of the Japan-America Society of
Washington DC.
Shihoko Goto
Shihoko Goto is the deputy director for geoeconomics and the senior Northeast Asia associate at
the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is a leading
expert on economics and politics in Japan, Taiwan and Korea, as well as U.S. policy in the region.
A seasoned journalist and analyst, she spent ten years reporting from Tokyo and Washington for
Dow Jones and UPI on the global economy, international trade, and Asian markets and politics. A
contributing editor to The Globalist, Goto previously worked for the World Bank and has been
awarded fellowships from the East-West Center and the Knight Foundation, among others.
Daniel Hamilton
Daniel Hamilton is the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Professor and directs the Foreign Policy
Institute’s “The United States, Europe, and World Order” Program at Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He was the founding director of the Center for
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Transatlantic Relations at SAIS. For 15 years he also served as executive director of the American
Consortium for EU Studies, designated by the European Commission as the EU Center of
Excellence Washington DC. Dr. Hamilton is the director of the Atlantic Basin Initiative, a leading
member of the Jean Monnet Network on Atlantic Studies and a member of the advisory board of
the Atlantic Dialogues. He has held a variety of senior positions in the US Department of State,
including deputy assistant secretary for European affairs, US special coordinator for Southeast
European stabilization, associate director of the Policy Planning Staff for two US secretaries of
state; director for policy in the Bureau of European Affairs; and senior policy adviser to the US
ambassador and US embassy in Germany. He also led international policy work for the Johns
Hopkins-led National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response. In
2008 he served as the first Robert Bosch Foundation Senior Diplomatic Fellow in the German
Foreign Office. In 2012 he was a member of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Futures Advisory
Group.” In 2013 he served as a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in
Berlin. He has been a member of the academic advisory boards for the Stiftung Wissenschaft und
Politik, the Körber Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Heinrich Böll
Foundation, and member of the board of advisers to the European-American Business Council, the
Center for European Policy Analysis, the Prague Center for Transatlantic Relations, the Bratislava
Center for European and North Atlantic Affairs, and the Center for International Relations in
Warsaw. From 2007 to 2009 he served at the invitation of the EU Commissioner for Trade to be
the sole US member of the steering committee of a major study of non-tariff barriers to
transatlantic commerce. Dr. Hamilton testifies regularly before the US Congress and European
parliaments, and is a regular commentator for European and U.S. media. He has also taught
graduate courses in US foreign policy and US-European relations at the Hertie School of
Governance in Berlin, the University of Innsbruck and the Free University of Berlin. From 1990 to
1993 he was senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and from 1982
to 1990 he served as deputy director of the Aspen Institute Berlin. From 1979 to 1982 he was a
program officer and Washington DC liaison officer for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
C. James Hospedales
C. James Hospedales recently founded EarthMedic to promote the health of people and the planet.
He is chair of the Defeat-NCD Partnership, a public-private-people partnership that aims to address
non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low-resource countries, and co-chair of the Expert Panel on
Climate Change and Health in the Caribbean. He is an adjunct clinical professor at Tulane
University School of Public Health and a member of the Pan American Health
Organization/World Health Organization NCD Technical Advisory Committee for the Caribbean.
Dr. Hospedales served as the inaugural executive director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency
from 2013 to 2019, catalyzing new partnerships in tourism and health, and leading the agency to
become a recognised player in the global public health field. He raised attention to climate change
as the #1 threat facing the region, and the other side of the same coin as non-communicable
diseases (NCDs) in small island and low-lying developing states. He was coordinator of Chronic
Disease Prevention and Control at the Pan American Health Organization from 2006 to 2012, and
led innovations such as the development of Wellness Week in collaboration with the World
Economic Forum, and the establishment of a Pan American Forum for Action on NCDs,
including public and private sector and civil society. He was part of the team that crafted the
historic CARICOM heads of government summit on NCDs in 2007. From 1998 to 2006, he was
the director of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre. Dr. Hospedales was a member of the
Caribbean Commission on Health and Development, which made policy recommendations to
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CARICOM heads of government and named chronic diseases, HIV and violence as super-priorities
for the region.
Ash Jain
Ash Jain is a senior fellow with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he oversees
the Atlantic Council’s Democratic Order Initiative and D-10 Strategy Forum. He previously served
as a member of the US secretary of state’s policy planning staff, focusing on US alliances and
partnerships, international norms, and challenges to the democratic order — including those posed
by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Jain was a Bosch public policy fellow with the German
Marshall Fund Transatlantic Academy and executive director for the Project for a United and
Strong America, where he coordinated a bipartisan foreign policy task force to produce a blueprint
for a values-based national security strategy, Setting Priorities for American Leadership. He also
served as an adviser for the White House Office of Global Communications and with the staffs of
Senators Fred Thompson and Dan Coats. Jain has also taught as an adjunct professor at
Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Ilona Kickbusch
Ilona Kickbusch is the founder and chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of
International and Development Studies in Geneva, advises countries on their global health
strategies and trains health specialists and diplomats in global health diplomacy. She is a member of
the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board and the World Health Organization High-Level
Independent Commission on Non-communicable Diseases and is co-chair of UHC 2030. She acts
as council chair to the World Health Summit in Berlin. She has been involved in German G7 and
G20 activities relating to global health and chairs the international advisory board for the
development of the German global health strategy. She publishes widely and serves on various
commissions and boards. She initiated the @wgh300 list of women leaders in global health. She is
program chair of the leaders in health network SCIANA. She is co-chair of a Lancet FT
Commission on “Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing Up in a Digital World.” Professor
Kickbusch has had a distinguished career with the World Health Organization. She was a key
instigator of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and WHO’s Healthy Cities Network and
has remained a leader in this field, most recently advising on the WHO activities related to
promoting health in the SDGs. She was the director of the Global Health Division at the Yale
University School of Public Health and responsible for the first major Fulbright Programme on
global health. She has published widely and received many prizes and recognitions, including the
Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz) in
recognition of her “invaluable contributions to innovation in governance for global health and
global health diplomacy.”
John Kirton
John Kirton is director of the G7 Research Group and G20 Research Group and co-director of the
Global Health Diplomacy Program and the BRICS Research Group, all based at Trinity College at
the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. A professor of
political science, he teaches Canadian foreign policy, global governance and international relations.
He has advised the Canadian and Russian governments, the World Health Organization and the
Pan American Health Organization on G7 and G20 participation and summitry, international
trade and sustainable development, and has written widely on G7 and G20 summitry. Among his
recent publications are Accountability for Effectiveness in Global Governance, co-edited with Marina
Larionova (2018), The Global Governance of Climate Change: G7, G20 and UN Leadership, co-authored
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with Ella Kokotsis (2015), and G20 Governance for a Globalized World (2013). Kirton is co-editor of
several publications dedicated to the G7 and G20 published by GT Media, including G7 France:
The 2019 Biarritz Summit. He is also co-editor, with Ilona Kickbusch, of Health Is a Political Choice, a
publication supported by the World Health Organization.
Dries Lesage
Dries Lesage is associate professor of globalization and global governance at Ghent University,
Belgium. He chairs the Ghent Institute for International Studies. He teaches theories of
international relations and the history of world politics (1815-present) at Ghent University. He also
teaches international relations theory in the Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences Program, jointly
organized by Ghent University and the Free University of Brussels. His current research interests
include key trends and reforms in the multilateral architecture, global tax governance (including
regional tax organizations) and Turkish politics. Publications include Rising Powers and Multilateral
Institutions (Palgrave, 2015, with Thijs Van de Graaf) and “The BRICs and International Tax
Governance: The Case of Automatic Exchange of Information,” in New Political Economy (2020,
with Wouter Lips and Mattias Vermeiren).
Meg Lundsager
Meg Lundsager is a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
and consults on international economic, financial and regulatory issues. While United States’
executive director on the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2007 to
2014, she focused on achieving effective IMF input into lending programs in Europe, securing
adequate IMF resources, supporting low-income countries and strengthening IMF oversight of
exchange rate policies. She negotiated increased emerging market representation at the IMF and
promoted enhanced ethical standards and internal oversight functions. As deputy assistant
secretary for trade and investment at the US Treasury Department (1996-2000), she negotiated
multilateral financial services agreements and aspects of China’s entry into the World Trade
Organization. She also analyzed portfolio allocation decisions of institutional investors as an
Atlantic Fellow in London.
Chiara Oldani
Chiara Oldani is professor of economic policy at the University of Viterbo “La Tuscia,” a research
associate at Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis of the Australian National University and
the director for Italy of the G7 Research Group. She has been visiting scholar at the Imperial
College in London in 2018, at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in 2014, at the
Cambridge Endowment of Research in Finance of the University of Cambridge in 2007 and at the
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. She teaches at Luiss “Guido Carli”
University and the Italian Society for International Organization in Rome. Chiara has published
dozens of academic papers and book chapters, both in English and Italian, on topics related to her
research.
Jim O’Neill
Lord O’Neill is chair of Chatham House. His previous roles include joint head of research at
Goldman Sachs (1995-2000), its chief economist (2001-2010) and chair of its asset management
division (2010-2013); creator of the acronym BRIC; chair of the City Growth Commission (2014);
chair of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (2014-2016); and commercial secretary to Her
Majesty’s Treasury (2015-2016). He is a board member and one of the founding trustees of the
educational charity SHINE. Lord O’Neill was created a life peer in 2015, and serves as a crossbench
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member of the House of Lords. He is an honorary professor of economics at the University of
Manchester, and a visiting professor at the University of Surrey.
James Orbinski
James Orbinski is a professor and the inaugural director of York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for
Global Health Research. He was elected international president of Médecins Sans Frontières from
1998 to 2001, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF in 1999, and co-chaired the
founding of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative in 2004. He also co-founded Dignitas
International, which researched health systems and clinical care, trained more than 12,000 health
workers, and supported more than 370,000 people with full treatment for HIV and AIDS in
Malawi. Dignitas also worked with First Nations communities in Northern Ontario on community
based interventions for diabetes. Dr. Orbinski is a board member of Grand Challenges Canada,
and has been a member of several bodies including the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development,
the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Canadian Doctors for Medicare, and the Climate Change and
Health Council. He is an invited member of the Davos World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda
Council on Health Care Systems and Cooperation. He was an invited member to the Canadian
Academy of Health Sciences 2011 Expert Panel on Canada’s Strategic Role in Global Health. He
is the author of the award-winning and best-selling book An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarianism in
the 21st Century. As a Fulbright visiting professor to the University of California-Irvine in 2016-
2017, he worked on modelling the health impacts of climate change.
Karoline Postel-Vinay
Karoline Postel-Vinay is a research professor at Sciences Po, Paris, and a senior research fellow at
Sciences Po’s Center for International Research. Her research areas are international relations
theory and analysis, and Northeast Asian politics. She has published extensively on global
governance issues, and, among others, a book on the G20 (Le G20, laboratoire d’un monde emergent)
translated in English and Spanish.
Christopher Sands
Christopher Sands is director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars. He is a member of the faculty of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. From 2012 until 2017 he was the G.
Robert Ross Distinguished Visiting Professor in the College of Business and Economics at Western
Washington University, and from 2005 to 2012 he taught in the School of Public Affairs and the
School of International Service at American University. His career in Washington think tanks dates
back to 1993 when he joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a resident
specialist on Canadian affairs as the U.S. debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement
began. He later staffed the Smart Border North Congressional Working Group to foster dialogue
with Canada on border security after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United
States. He joined the Hudson Institute as a senior fellow in 2007 and led the Hudson Initiative on
North American Competitiveness until 2016. Dr. Sands serves as a member of the board of
directors for the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal, on the executive committee of
the Canada-United States Law Institute at Case Western Reserve University and Western
University of Ontario, and on the research advisory board for the Macdonald Laurier Institute in
Ottawa.
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Yves Schemiel
Yves Schemeil is professor emeritus of global and comparative politics at Sciences Po Grenoble and
a visiting professor in geopolitics at the Grenoble Ecole de Management and Sciences Po Beirut.
He has published his research in French, English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese on globalization,
international organizations, political psychology and anthropology, with a focus on the Middle East
and Asia. Professor Schemeil has been invited to teach or give keynote speeches in universities and
schools around the world, including Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Geneva, Harvard, Laval,
Princeton, UCLA, Tokyo and Yale.
Claudia Schmucker
Claudia Schmucker has been head of the Globalization and World Economy Program at the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (German Council on Foreign Relations) since 2002.
She has published extensively on European and transatlantic trade policy, the World Trade
Organization and the Doha Round, as well as on the role of informal global forums such as the G7
and the G20.
Jeffrey J. Schott
Jeffrey J. Schott joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics in 1983 and is a senior
fellow working on international trade policy and economic sanctions. Schott has also been also a
visiting lecturer at Princeton University (1994) and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University
(1986-1988). He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1982-
1983) and an official of the US Treasury Department (1974-1982) in international trade and energy
policy. During the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations, he was a member of the US
delegation that negotiated the Subsidies Code in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He
is a member of the US State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy
and previously co-chaired the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee for the US
Trade Representative.
Miranda Schreurs
Miranda Schreurs is chair of climate and environmental policy at the Bavarian School of Public
Policy at the Technical University of Munich. She investigates environmental movements, green
politics and climate policy making both comparatively and internationally. She has researched in
Europe, the United States and Asia. She also specializes on the politics surrounding the disposal of
highly radioactive waste. In 2011, Professor Schreurs was appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel
as a member of the Ethics Committee for a Secure Energy Supply. In 2016, she was appointed by
the German Bundestag as a member of a committee established to bring citizens’ voices and ensure
greater transparency in the search for a disposal site for highly radioactive waste. She was a member
of the German Council on the Environment (2008-2016) and is vice chair of the European
Advisory Council on Environment and Sustainable Development. She was a Fulbright Fellow to
Japan and Germany and spent three years studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard University. She also worked as a professor of comparative politics at the University of
Maryland. From 2007 to 2016 she was director of the Environmental Policy Research Center and
professor of comparative policy at the Free University of Berlin.
Dennis Snower
Dennis J. Snower is founder and president of the Global Solutions Initiative, a professor of
macroeconomics and sustainability at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, a senior research
fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford, a non-resident fellow of Brookings
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Institution and a visiting professor at University College London. He was formerly president of the
Kiel Institute for the World Economy and is research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy
Research in London, at the Institute for the Future of Work in Bonn, and CESifo in Munich. He
has published extensively on employment policy, the design of welfare systems, caring economics
and monetary and fiscal policy.
Earl Anthony Wayne
Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne is a distinguished diplomat in residence at American
University’s School of International Service. He is also a public policy fellow at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars and co-chair of its Mexico Institute Advisory Board. He is
a senior non-resident adviser at the Atlantic Council and at the Center for Security and
International Studies. Ambassador Wayne served as a US diplomat from 1975 to 2015, including
as the US ambassador to Argentina (2006-2009), the coordinating director for development and
economic affairs and deputy US ambassador in Kabul, Afghanistan (2009-2011), and the US
ambassador to Mexico (2011-2015). He was the assistant secretary of state for economic and
business affairs under three secretaries of state (2000-2006). The US Senate confirmed him as a
Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the US Foreign Service, in 2010. He has received multiple
honors during his government service, including the 2017 Director General’s Cup for the Foreign
Service and the 2015 Cobb Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development.
Duncan Wood
Duncan Wood is director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars. He is an internationally renowned specialist on North American politics, Mexico and US-
Mexican ties who lectures and publishes on hemispheric issues and relations. He regularly gives
testimony to the US Congress on US-Mexico relations, is a widely quoted source on Mexican
politics, and has published extensively on this and other issues. He is the author or editor of 12
books and more than 30 chapters and articles. He is currently co-chair of the World Economic
Forum’s Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption, has worked closely with the
WEF on energy policy, and is a member of the editorial board of Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica. From
1996 to 2012, he was a professor and the director of the International Relations Program at the
Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM) in Mexico City. Over the course of his 30-year
career he has been a Fulbright Fellow and a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, an editorial adviser to Reforma and El Universal newspapers, technical secretary of the Red
Mexicana de Energia, and a consultant with McLarty Associates, the Economist Intelligence Unit,
Horizon and Eurasia Group; and owner of a speakeasy in Mexico City. He is a recipient of the
Canadian Governor General’s Visit Award for contributions to the Mexico-Canada relationship.
Jan Wouters
Jan Wouters is full professor of international law and international organizations, Jean Monnet
Chair ad personam European Union and Global Governance, director of the Institute for
International Law and of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies (both a Jean Monnet
Centre of Excellence and a University Centre of Excellence) at KU Leuven, and president of the
University’s Board for International Policy. He is an adjunct professor at Columbia University
(New York) and a visiting professor at Sciences Po (Paris), LUISS (Rome) and the College of
Europe (Bruges). A member of the Belgian Royal Academy and Of Counsel at Linklaters, Brussels,
he has published widely on international and EU law, international organizations and global
governance, and corporate and financial law, including more than 70 books, 150 journal articles
and 240 chapters in international books. He is coordinator of a large Horizon 2020 Project,
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RECONNECT (Reconnecting Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and Rule of Law). He
advises and trains regularly officials of international organizations and governments, and is often
asked to comment international events in the media. In 2020 he is a visiting professor at Université
Paris2, Paris, and at Queen Mary University, London.
Rationales
Health
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global public health emergency with immediate and secondary
health impacts, as well as cascading and compounding economic and social effects that are global in
nature, and that cannot be solved by any one country acting alone. Millions of people have been
infected. COVID-19 continues to spread globally with differing patterns and waves of infection
nationally and regionally.1,2
As the first wave of infection peaks in North America, and as subsequent waves of infection emerge
in Asia and Europe, we are reminded that the second wave of the 1918 influenza pandemic killed
more people than the first. In Africa alone, where the first wave is still unfolding, by the end of
2020 up to 190,000 people could die of COVID-19, and an additional 44 million people could be
infected.3 With limited disease detection and testing capacity in low- and middle-income countries,
thousands of deaths are not being reported, obscuring the true toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.4
The impacts of COVID-19 go beyond the direct morbidity and mortality effects of the virus itself.
Secondary health impacts include up to an additional 1.2 million children under five who could
die in the next six months as a result of the pandemic though the disruption of health systems and
decreased access to food. This would be the first increase in global child mortality since World War
II. Similarly, indirect maternal deaths could rise from 8% to 38% in the same period, setting back
major gains in maternal child health.5 Other secondary health impacts include increases in
vulnerability to the effects of HIV, undetected tuberculosis through disrupted health services,
disruptions in chronic disease care and the already-evident collapse of public health such as measles
immunization programs.
The impacts of COVID also cascade across sectors, can compound with other risks in vulnerable
groups and can emerge as network hyper-risks that ramify across systems and geographies. National
and global economic fragility and massive public debt are new realities, as are unprecedented job
losses especially in the informal sectors of low- and middle-income countries. The World Bank
1
Coronavirus Resource Center (2020). “COVID-19 Case Tracker.” Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu.
2
World Health Organization (2020). “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 92.”
Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-
reports/20200421-sitrep-92-covid-19.pdf.
3
WHO (2020). “Up to 190 000 People Could Die of COVID-19 in Africa If Not Controlled.” Accessed May
9, 2020. https://www.afro.who.int/news/new-who-estimates-190-000-people-could-die-covid-19-africa-if-
not-controlled.
4
Anatoly Kurmanaev (2020). “Latin America’s Outbreaks Now Rival Europe’s. But Its Options Are Worse.”
New York Times, May 12. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/world/americas/latin-america-virus-
death.html.
5
Robertson T, Carter E, Chou V et al ( 2020). Early estimates of the indirect effects of the COVID-19
pandemic on maternal and child mortality in low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling
study. The Lancet Global Health. May 12, 2020.
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projects that the sharpest historic decline in global remittances could push 40–60 million people
into extreme poverty, and national, regional and global food insecurity is a new reality. The more
than one billion people who live in informal peri-urban slums and barrios without safe potable
water or adequate health or sanitation services are especially vulnerable. Other hazards may affect
communities experiencing COVID-19, as evidenced by the recent Tropical Cyclone Harold in Fiji.6
Recent projections indicate public health containment, control and mitigation measures, such as
widespread testing and contact tracing and physical distancing, may need to be maintained into
2022, further exacerbating health, social and economic impacts in already brittle and weakened
economies.7
As the world engages in unprecedented containment, control and mitigation measures, COVID-19
will continue to hit poorer countries particularly hard, where new outbreaks expose and exacerbate
inequity and vulnerability. As the pandemic and its cascade effects continue to unfold, even the
best-case scenarios leave the United Nations warning of global famines that could affect 250 million
people by the end of 2020.8 Here, those most at risk are in 10 countries affected by conflict,
economic crisis and climate change, or who are in other complex humanitarian settings.9 As of May
7, 2020, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has tripled its
unprecedented and “Extraordinary Appeal” to $6.7 billion in support for an immediate global
humanitarian response to COVID-19 in fragile countries.
Although there has been an unprecedented global scientific response to COVID-19, there is still no
treatment or vaccine; the type and duration of immunity are not yet known, but the emergence of
viral mutation is a certainty and can emerge anywhere.10 The corollary morbidity and mortality
patterns may be better or worse than what has occurred and is currently occurring. A vaccine must
be globally effective and must be a global public good, and access must be equitable to ensure
appropriate containment, control and mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Economy
Promoting Flexibility, Resilience and Opportunity
Deregulation: Large portions of our domestic economies have been altered by the pandemic and our
initial responses to it. Many small businesses are being restructured to reflect the new realities and
their workforce plans and business models are being altered. It is essential that domestic labor
market regulations, often introduced to meet the conditions of many decades ago and
accumulating in a complex fashion, do not hinder the restructuring required in our new, COVID-
19–disrupted economies.
6
Dennis McLean (2020). “Extreme Weather Events in a Time of COVID-19.” United Nations Office for
Disaster Risk Reduction, April 16. https://www.undrr.org/news/extreme-weather-events-time-covid-19.
7
Stephen M. Kissler, Christine Tedijanto, Edward Goldstein, Yonatan H. Grad and Marc Lipsitch. (2020).
“Projecting the Transmission Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 Through the Post-Pandemic Period.” Science, May
22. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6493/860.full.
8
BBC News (2020). “Coronavirus: World Risks ‘Biblical’ Famines Due to Pandemic – UN,” April 21.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52373888.
9
Food Security Information Network (2020). Global Report on Food Crises 2020. April 20.
https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-
0000114546/download/?_ga=2.87091864.1423547846.1589235876-170409956.158923587.
10
Maria Pachetti, Bruna Marini, Francesca Benedetti et al. (2020). “Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Mutation Hot
Spots Include a Novel RNA-Dependent-RNA Polymerase Variant.” Journal of Translational Medicine 18:
179, April 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02344-6.
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